Adapted from a Chief Delphi post by the same author. Click here for the full article. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with robotics terminology, here’s a quick glossary!

Preseason: before build season starts, from the beginning of the school year until Jan 6th/7th

Crescendo: the name of the 2024 season’s game

FIRST: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, the robotics organization that we’re a part of

FRC: FIRST Robotics Competition

CAD: Computer-Aided Design, used to make 3D-printed elements, among other uses

Safety Animation Award: each team submits a short animation about safety, and the winning team receives an award. The KoiBots’ preseason has been pretty busy, especially with over 50 students (almost half of which are newbies) getting ready for Crescendo! We’ve had quite a lot of activity on our non-tech/admin side. We’ve done our Fall Fundraiser, made a sponsorship packet, speedran a Safety Animation Award submission in 72 hours, and gotten a lot of cool merch for our school’s Winter Bazaar.

Newbie Training

We started with a few meetings going over what FIRST and FRC are. Then we started general skill lessons! We covered basics such as how to write an email, how to search Google, safety (shop, competition, online, etc.), electrical basics, and some simple CAD. We also assigned them homework of completing 5/7 basic tasks.

 For the rest of the preseason, we had the newbies break out into their chosen subteam(s) for more specific training. We encouraged them to drift around and explore!

Fall Fundraiser

This is something pretty unique to us! Since our founding year, we’ve run two yard work fundraisers, one in the fall, and one in the spring. In 2021 and 2022, over 90% of our income was student-raised through these fundraisers.

We send students out in teams of four per job, and run our fundraiser for just about a month and a half, aiming for eight jobs each weekend.

Not only does it supply funding, we’ve found it to be a very good way of team bonding and giving students good skills (communication, following directions, navigating the public transit systems, etc.). Over the years, it’s become synonymous with the phrase “good character development” as a little inside joke.

Sponsorship Packet

This year is the first time we’ve made a sponsorship packet! As cool as our fundraisers are, our team grows faster than our money does, so we’ve been trying to get more grants and sponsorships for the future.

A sponsorship packet is a compilation of reasons a company or individual should sponsor us, normally including background on the team and lots of photos. It makes it easier for a team to advertise themselves.

Safety Animation

Did it in 72 hours. Enough said

Fun meme video, EXTREMELY unserious

Winter Bazaar

We sold cool merch at the school’s Winter Bazaar on Dec 11th (and we taught some newbies about laser cutting)! We sold bookmarks, cards, stickers, temporary tattoos, keychains, earrings… the list goes on. If you were around during lunch, you may have seen Anna Litwiller (also the science columnist on the ACC Chronicle!) or other robotics team members at the table.